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Opera Max, the free and easy-to-use data-savings app that compresses data across almost every app on an Android phone, is now available in an additional 16 countries and includes support for Android Lollipop. Starting today, citizens of the following regions no longer have to worry about having a data horror story about exceeding their monthly mobile data limit, as this unique app gives users up to 50% more use out of their data plans.

The latest countries to gain access to Opera Max include:

Albania

Australia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Cambodia

Hong Kong

Japan

Laos

Liechtenstein

Macedonia [FYROM]

Myanmar [Burma]

New Zealand

Papua New Guinea

Serbia

Singapore

South Korea

Taiwan

“Opera Max is the next step in the evolution of compression technology created by Opera Software. Users across the globe, from the United States and parts of Europe, including Turkey and Russia, have already been enjoying saving mobile data with Opera Max. We are continuing to roll out Opera Max to more countries, because we believe internet access is a fundamental right for all, and Opera Max makes this access more affordable for users,” says Sergey Lossev, Head of Opera Max at Opera Software.

How Opera Max works

Opera Max works by compressing data usage across apps, including video, text and images, on Android mobile devices, meaning users can get more usage out of their data plans. It is the only app for Android that gives consumers significant data savings on mobile video, which makes up a large chunk of data usage by consumers.

Opera Max’s advanced video optimization is powered by Rocket Optimizer, a cloud-based solution from Opera’s Skyfire unit. Once installed, Opera Max starts rerouting data traffic on the mobile device to the Opera data-savings cloud, using a virtual private network (VPN). All non-encrypted data requests (excluding secure websites and apps with HTTPS connections) are sent through Opera’s servers, which compress video, images and websites to consume less data.

Take control of data consumption

Through Opera Max’s timeline of app usage and savings, users can get a unique at-a-glance look at where their data quota is going and get more control over the data they consume. They can also keep track of their savings and even block particular apps from using mobile data, restricting them to Wi-Fi only.

Android Lollipop Updates

The Opera Max user interface and core networking component now work seamlessly with Lollipop. With this, there will be a few improvements to user experience. Issues with IPv6 traffic in previous versions of the app are now resolved. Additionally, the VPN will have a lifetime approval permission, this means that once users confirm VPN approval for Opera Max, then every time their device reboots they will no longer have to reapprove the app.

With this update, users now also have the option to hide all notifications from Opera Max, by going to the app settings and disabling the optional “savings status” notification. By default, Opera Max savings status notifications will now be visible as a lock screen notification. It can be disabled by long pressing on the notification, then pressing the i for Information and flicking the block notification switch to on.